within an hour
I watch the boy transform
from seed to leaf to flower
Archive for March, 2018
One for the Fencing Championship
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged competition, fencing, mothering, poem, poetry on March 15, 2018| Leave a Comment »
What Every Mother Knows
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged chores, love, mothering, poem, poetry on March 12, 2018| Leave a Comment »
And it’s scrub the floors
and wash and wring,
run to the store,
fix everything,
and wash and wring,
and straighten drawers
remember to bring
bags to the store,
clean anything,
then clean some more
fix everything—
it’s in our chores
that love finds wings.
One Preparation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bonfire, poem, poetry, preparation on March 11, 2018| Leave a Comment »
months before the match,
piling sticks onto the bonfire—
already the face glows with the heat
Getting On Board with Ms. Bishop
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Elizabeth Bishop, loss, poem, poetry, rondeau, surrender on March 11, 2018| 2 Comments »
Lose something every day.
—Elizabeth Bishop, “One Art”
Lose something every day, the poet said—
and how I laughed the first time that I read
her words. My keys? My gloves? My place in line?
My favorite socks? A name? My glass of wine?
I’ve got that down, I thought, and shook my head.
But then I thought of passing time, the threads
of dates unraveling—and how I try to wind
them back, reclaim those squandered hours as mine.
Lose something every day?
And then I thought of certainty, how wed
I am to thoughts, convictions, faith. Instead
of losing them, I cling. Then they confine.
Some things are better lost—my rigid mind,
my prejudice, old chains of shame, my dread—
lose something every day.
One Way to Walk
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged getting lost, nature, poem, poetry, walk on March 10, 2018| 2 Comments »
Not Only On Thursdays at Noon
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Heartbeat, poem, poetry, song on March 8, 2018| 3 Comments »
for Heartbeat
Though the clock
implies nothing
with its tick
ineluctable,
the body clicks in
to the beat
and begins
to make music
because, though
clearly there’s
so much to do,
what isn’t
an invitation
to sing?
*Thursdays at noon is the present time scheduled for Heartbeat to practice, a seven-woman a cappella choir singing together since 1994. Our next concert, Live as One, features diversity and harmony–songs from all over the world. We’re performing in Telluride at Ah Haa at 7 p.m. on March 15 and in Ridgway at the Sherbino Theater on March 18 at 4 p.m.
Making Peace with the Darkness
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged child, darkness, fear, love, mother, poem, poetry, villanelle on March 8, 2018| 12 Comments »
My child, I say, you need not fear the night—
its unlit corners, rooms of dim unknown—
the darkness helps us learn beyond the light.
But mom, how do I know that you’re alright
if I can’t see you? I feel so alone.
My child, I say, there’s goodness in the night.
The dark erases any lines we might
have drawn, makes all the world appear as one.
The dark helps us to see beyond the light.
But mom, I don’t feel safe without my sight.
What if there’s monsters, spiders, things that groan?
My child, I say, there’s kindness in the night.
You feel how darkness holds the whole world tight?
Embracing every human, creature, stone—
the darkness helps us reach beyond the light.
It hugs us all, despite our wrongs, our rights,
inviting everyone into its home.
My child, I say, you need not fear the night—
the darkness helps us love beyond the light.
Before the Eggs
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged impossible, me too, poem, poetry on March 6, 2018| 2 Comments »
Why sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
—Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
Eyes barely open, and it doesn’t even occur to me
that anything is wrong in the world. After all,
I am warm and no one is crying. There are no
gunshots, no bombshells, no one kicking at the door.
No one shouts, no one threatens, no one steals.
I’ve yet to read the headlines, yet to remember
yesterday. For a moment, there’s no hitch in my breath,
no stab in the heart. It’s only the beginnings
of a very blue sky and the sound of the dawn chorus
in the nearby tree, though the more I listen,
the more their song sounds like “Me, too. Me, too.”
And somehow, at least for a moment before I rise
to wash my face, before I look in the mirror,
I still believe everything is going to be okay.
And sometimes, despite everything I hear,
despite feeling it fall away, the feeling stays.
A Case for Quietude
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, busy, junco, nature, poem, poetry, quietude on March 6, 2018| 2 Comments »
Arriving at the starting line
I think of the marathon to come—
somewhere there’s a man
with a gun and a timer.
Somewhere there’s another line
I hope to cross.
Somewhere there’s a woman
who doesn’t know there is a race.
She knows only that the juncos
have come, and if she is still enough
she can see their white tail feathers
flashing in flight.
One in the Snow
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged path, poem, poetry, shoveling, snow on March 4, 2018| Leave a Comment »
In the Dream
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, dream, life, poem, poetry on March 3, 2018| 2 Comments »
I choose to go down with the boat
and grip tight the rails—
and the blue water widens its mouth
and swallows the ship, pulls it deeper, deeper in,
but I can’t make my body stay down,
and I float, unwillingly, to the surface.
I wake, spluttering, resentful—
this is not how it was supposed to end—
though the ship was doomed,
I was supposed to stay.
But the sunlight has other plans
for me. All day, I wring
salt water from my hair.
All day the world calls to me
like a crow, start again,
start again, start again
One for the Ellipses
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ellipses, poem, poetry, punctuation on March 3, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Punctuated
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged colon, love, poem, poetry, punctuation on March 1, 2018| 1 Comment »
I keep in my pocket
a handful of colons
to pull out in times of need,
you know, for those times
when I’m just not sure
what I’m trying to say.
That’s what a colon’s for.
It says, “Here’s what I mean.”
It’s a way to introduce things,
and you know how valuable
introductions can be.
Something’s so fine about a colon:
- the symmetry, of course,
- the simplicity, and
- the way that it joins
two independent clauses.
And what are you,
really, my love, but one
independent clause,
and what am I but a second,
ever trying to explain,
interpret or expand
on the first. And that
colon between us?
Two stars in an intimate
constellation. Two points
on a map that leads
only in. Twin cherry buds
on an invisible limb
just before they bloom.
Invitation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged earth, poem, poetry, science, song, unity on March 1, 2018| Leave a Comment »
I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony.
—The New Seekers
The earth, say the scientists,
is more bell than we thought,
imperceptibly ringing beneath
our feet. Just because we can’t
hear it doesn’t mean it’s not
being played ceaselessly,
an ultralow hum thousands
of times below what the human ear
can hear. And the hum, they say,
is everywhere, uniting the globe
in a common tone. Perhaps,
they say, it’s ocean waves
that bang on the sea floor
or waves that crash into each other.
Perhaps, they say, the sound
goes all the way to the core.
Just because we don’t know why it rings
doesn’t mean we can’t sing along.